


The Arc of Conflict, Saga 14: While You Were Away

by bzarcher, solarbird



Series: Of Gods and Monsters [98]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Blackwatch, Deadlock Gang, Enemies, Engineering, Fear, Hacking, Hesitation, Lies, London, M/M, Misdirection, Omnics, Other, Overwatch Retribution, Overwatch Uprising, Politics, Post-Talon, Rialto (Overwatch), Sabotage, Separations, Shambali (Overwatch), Talon Fareeha "Pharah" Amari, Talon Lena "Tracer" Oxton, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:26:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21640144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bzarcher/pseuds/bzarcher, https://archiveofourown.org/users/solarbird/pseuds/solarbird
Summary: Katya Volskaya's government in Russia has destroyed the omnium Koschei, and held their own against the Gods of Oasis. With no point to additional fighting, the overt war has paused. But covertly, the conflict carries on. The gods, after all, still have a plan, and will do what is needed - one way, or another.Jesse knows what needs to be done, or thinks he does. Overwatch doesn't agree. But Jesse never has been the sort to let anything like that stop him.Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Conflictis a continuance ofThe Arc of Ascension,The Arc of Creation, andThe Armourer and the Living Weapon. To follow the story as it appears,please subscribe to the series.
Relationships: Elizabeth Caledonia Ashe & Jesse McCree, Jesse McCree/Genji Shimada, Moira O'Deorain & Lena "Tracer" Oxton
Series: Of Gods and Monsters [98]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/972024
Comments: 19
Kudos: 28





	The Arc of Conflict, Saga 14: While You Were Away

**Author's Note:**

> dirtyclaws has launched [a public fan-run _Of Gods and Monsters_ discord server](https://discord.gg/pDZMpVT) and invites everyone to come join it. ^_^

Jesse McCree sat in the shelter at the edge of the outdoor range, looking at the target frames in the distance, looking at the mountains, but really, not looking at anything in particular. It was too late to do any shooting here - the chances of sound triggering avalanches wasn't that high, but it was high enough, so practice was limited to the indoor ranges.

"What're we doin' here, Torb?"

Torbjörn looked up from the table, where he'd drawn out some drafting paper, the old kind, actually paper. "I don't know what you might be doing, Jesse, but I'm brainstorming." He drew a set of lines, straight as sniper shots, as if guided by a ruler. "I'm Swedish. I like this weather."

He pointed towards the sauna he and Brigitte had built in anticipation of the winter. "And this year, we'll have a spa!"

Jesse's smirk made it up to "good natured," as did his small chuckle. "I mean _here_."

He pulled out a cigarette, and lit it, and drew in a big draw of breath, before blowing the smoke out the cracked-open window, the outside air cold, flowing in.

"I mean... you're back designing weapons..."

" _Shields_. Defences." The engineer interrupted, pointing his pen at the cowboy. "I'm done making weapons."

"...which you could do just as well at home. Meanwhile I'm bein' sent out for intel that don't matter." McCree shrugged, then continued. "Feels like I'm wastin' my time."

Torbjörn looked up from his linework. "I thought Jack was keeping you pretty well busy."

"Busy not doin' anything. Nothin' that counts." He took another draw off his cigarette. "We all know the problem. But we're waltzin' around like we don't know what to do about it, when you and I both know we do."

The older man slumped a little. "Are y'sure about that? 'Cause I'm not."

Jesse glanced over before returning to his cigarette. "You're not?"

"Not like I used to be." Torbjörn slid the papers a little, making the angle easier for his remaining biological arm. "When I got here, I thought it was gonna be Amélie and Gérard all over again, just with even more of 'em. Talon, on the rise, and we could do something about it, when it mattered. That's what I was told, and that's what I was ready to believe."

"No. It's worse."

Torbjörn shook his head, no. "It's not, though. It's different. _They're_ different."

"Jack's been up close. He said..."

"I know what he said," Torbjörn grumbled. "I know he believes it, too. But he never worked with Lena, not in the field, and I did. She's not as much different as he thinks."

"I knew her too, y'know. From..."

"London?"

"And other places."

"But not in the field. Except - from a distance - in London."

The gunslinger shrugged.

"You were around, but y'weren't _there_." He shook his head. "I was terrified, the whole time. So was the rest of the strike team, and everybody else on the ground... except her."

"I don't know as I'd admit to _terrified..._ "

"Scared, then. If y'weren't, you'd've had to be out of your mind." He thought back to the thousands of enemies firing - dozens for every agent - and how he still didn't really know how they got out alive.

"She wasn't scared?"

"She was at first. But once she got goin'?" He put down his pencil. "Once she really got goin', as far as I could tell, for her... it was all just a big, fun game."

"A big fun game of killin' people, now."

"And then."

Jesse shrugged. "She was a soldier, then. Attacking killers - terrorists - who were taking down civilians in her home town. Can't blame her for gettin' a bit of enjoyment out of that." He cracked open the window again, long enough to take a long drag from his cigarette, and blow it back out, into the wind. "But now it's a game even when it's people y'know. People... y'used to care about. Who used t'care about you."

Lindholm gave McCree a long, slow, considering look, narrowing his eyes in thought, until he got there.

"...Gabriel?" he asked, quietly. "Do y'mean... Gabe?"

McCree nodded. "Gabe."

Torbjörn sighed as he slumped, hands on top of the table. "Reyes was lost to us a long time ago, Jesse."

"Not to me." McCree flipped the cigarette around in his hand, cupping the lit end, letting it warm his fingers. "And then he came back, and told his story, and... I believed him. I knew him better than anyone else there, Jack aside, and I believed him." He flipped the cigarette around, looking at the softly glowing tip as it faded. "And now he's gone. This time, for good."

Torbjörn pushed the paper aside. The sheets didn't actually matter - the pen stored all the drawings, the paper was just for the physicality, the feeling, the resistance, the texture.

"...this isn't about Lena or Angela or Fareeha, is it?"

The cowboy said nothing, for a moment, still looking at the fading burn. "Kinda is. Kinda not."

"O'Deorain then, is it?"

"Yep," McCree replied. "Y'know how I wasn't really there for London?"

"Yeah."

He took a small, polite puff from his cigarette, just enough to keep the flame lit. "You weren't there for Rialto."

Torbjörn nodded. He knew all the facts, of course - the investigations insured they all did - but that wasn't the same as being there, not by half. "No, not at all."

Jesse looked up at the ceiling, but really, back into his memories of the day everything started to come apart for Overwatch.

"Gabe was too close to it to notice, and then things went down, and he was too busy tryin' to pull our asses out of the fire. Genji didn't catch it either - we've talked about it since, but... back then he was too angry all the time to pay much attention to anything much other than a mission plan and what he could slice apart with his blades." His eyebrows furrowed as his eyes narrowed. "But I noticed."

"What didn't they notice?"

"That Talon all knew we were comin' the whole time - and only one of us wasn't surprised."

"...O'Deorain?"

"O'Deorain," he confirmed with a nod, looking back down. "Moira's the one who tore it all apart. Gabe, Amélie, Overwatch, Lena, Angie - all of it. One way or another, I intend t'make sure she pays. And if Overwatch won't do it..."

He put out the cigarette.

"...then I will."

\-----

"We... mum, we can't let them do this."

The Russian government had elevated their responses to the protests, and Lena felt sick with rage. Yes, she was a Weapon. Yes, she killed people. But only people who _needed_ it. Only when it was _right_. And this wasn't, to her mind, right. Not even a little bit.

"Housing shouldn't have a bloody body count! We have to step in!"

Moira wanted to agree. She did agree, in part - to her mind, Russia's actions were unconscionable, even in the kind of dirty war that all civil wars tended to become. And isn't that what this had become, really - a new civil war, in Russia?

 _Akande would be thrilled_ , she couldn't help but think, and hated herself - or who she had been - a little bit for it. "We can't. Not yet."

"If we step in directly, we'll be right back in it," Fareeha added, adding her weight to Moria's side. "It will become a three-way war, not two."

Dr. Zhou frowned. "If it gets too damaging, you will _have_ to do something," she insisted. "Russia has too many of the wrong kinds of weapons. We cannot risk the progress we have made - the stakes are too high!"

Hana Song nodded to her friend. "Mei's right about that." She threw a set of images and datasets up on the council's virtual screens. "They've been looting Koschei's weapons caches, and have a whoooole new bunch of brand-new power-ups to play with. I'm having to make some guesses about impacts, but it could get large-scale ugly really quick."

"You - we - must all be ready to respond, if that happens," Mei-Ling said.

"I've been working on defenses against some of the most likely possibilities," Efi volunteered, from Numbani. "Koschei was very strange! But he had some very interesting ideas, and I think if I can understand them, I can protect people from the weapons Russia might make."

"The possibility of needing all that is why we _should not_ 'step in,'" Fareeha insisted. "Right now, despite our quiet aid efforts, this is seen as an internal matter by both sides. Russians against Russians. That will keep it limited."

"That's a terrible way to look at it, luv," Lena interjected, her unhappiness clear in her voice.

"I agree," Fareeha conceded. "But it's also the truth. We intervene, Volskaya ramps everything all the way up, and then where will we be?" She looked back to the Goddess of Strategy. "It would become a slaughter, Hana. You know it at least as well as I."

Hana grimaced, not liking being put up against Lena, but also aware that the military realities simply mattered too much. She grumbled, quietly, looking down at the data on the table in front of her, the soft numbers she'd been working on with Sombra, running through them again, and again, until she had to admit she couldn't find a way to game around them. Not yet.

 _Damn_ , she thought. _Ree's right. It sucks, but... she's right._

"I'm sorry, Lena. We have to stay out - unless they ramp it up on their own," Hana reached over apologetically, and Lena took her hand in her own, accepting the comfort. "Unless it escalates."

Lena slumped a little, comfort aside. "Yeh. I guess so. I just... I just hate it. That's all."

"I do too," Hana said, adding her other hand. "People are getting hurt and killed for no good reason, and it's terrible. But sometimes you have to know when the best move is not to move at all."

 _At least_ , she added to herself, _not where they can see you._

\-----

"You are going, then?"

Genji lay on his back, in his quarters at the temple. They were - as tradition held - simple, and spartan, but not without some comforts, such as the double-width bed his spiritual master had allowed with some small degree of amusement.

McCree nodded, lying against him, under the blankets. "I got to, Genj. This isn't workin'. I have to find somethin' that will."

"But you are not closing the door," his lover noted.

"Nah. Would if I had to, though," Jesse said, with a bit of lightness in his voice. "Told Morrison I had some leads t'follow in Central America. It's not even a lie."

"That is good."

"I wish you'd come with me."

Genji shook his head, no, rustling the hard pillow behind his head. "I am sorry, Jesse. I..."

He looked at nothing, at a wall, but towards where they both knew his brother would be training soon. Hanzo spent much time in training, as of late - at least, when he was in Nepal.

"Family. Yeah, I get that. Particularly after all you two've been through." Jesse nodded. "I really do."

"Not just that," Genji said, looking back at his lover, growing visibly thoughtful. "I understand your reservations about what we have been doing. I share them, and have more of my own."

"But you're staying."

"I want to keep an eye on things here. Something about this is becoming too settled. Too..."

Jesse gave Genji a puzzled look, as the student thought, searching for words.

"...familiar. And permanent. It is not entirely right that it be here, so near our temple, and it is not right that..."

Genji trailed off again, signs of his troubled thoughts flying across his scarred face. Jesse brushed his hand along the side of Genji's neck, along his shoulders, gently, knowing it helped him relax, helped him think.

"I think Morrison and Amari have done the best they can," he carefully continued, "with the hands they have been dealt. But... I do not like... how they are doing what they are doing, and I do not like that they are picking up other tasks. Ordinary tasks - intelligence tasks, typically for governments, not groups like... whatever Overwatch is becoming."

"What d'ya mean, Genj?" Jesse propped himself up on his left elbow, looking down at the ninja. "Intelligence work's got its place. Even if I think we need to be doin' a lot more direct action, I..."

"It is, when there is accountability. But we do not have that," he interrupted. "No. It is... partly, I mean that... when Winston said someone had to do something... I think he was right, but I do not think he meant this."

Genji took a deep breath, and let it back out.

"I served with you, before. I think we did genuine good - good that truly mattered - along with the bad. I think we did more good than bad, even if we... even if _I_ did not always do it the right way. But we both know what it became, even so."

Jesse took, and then let out, a heavy breath. "...yeah. I guess we do."

"Then you understand."

"All too well," he admitted. "Y'think we're headin' back there?"

"I do not know. I hope not. But I am... concerned. And I think your departure will make the situation worse, not better."

"Aw, I ain't worried none 'bout that - Rein's gonna fill in for me, and he's not the sort to do anything he doesn't think is right."

"He is also not the sort to see trouble in people he has chosen to trust. You are."

Jesse looked taken aback at that. "Y'think he's forgiven Jack? Completely?"

"After what happened, before, in the old days... for him to come back at all, I think he had to."

"He came back for _Winston_ , not for Jack. Winston's recall, that was one thing. Winston never had an insincere bone in his body. Jack, on the other hand..."

"And yet, he has stayed. He is... no longer quite so much the fool he was back then, I think, but he is still..."

"Just a different kind of fool?"

Genji snorted. "An idealist."

"Same thing."

"If you say so," the student said, with a shrug. "Either way, I do not think he is up to the task."

Jesse smirked, raising an eyebrow. "Like I am?"

"Moreso than him, I think. But I do not know if anyone is." Genji sighed, and shifted around, putting his hands behind his head. "After London, I urged my master to help save a new and better Overwatch - not a new, and possibly worse, Blackwatch."

"And y'think that's what you've done."

"I truly hope not."

"What if that's what we kinda need?"

Genji looked into Jesse's eyes, sadness in his gaze.

"I do not think that is what _anyone_ needs, right now. Least of all you."

"Yeah, well," Jesse said, then rolled off the mattress with a frown, and stretched, cold spawning goosebumps up his naked back. _It's about time I got outta here anyway._ "Sometimes y'just gotta work with what y'got."

Genji sat quietly, as he watched his lover dress.

"For whatever it is worth," he said, as McCree stepped through the door, and the cowboy paused. "Good luck, Jesse."

Jesse looked back, and gave his lover a nod. "Thank you. Kindly." He looked down the corridor for a moment, appearing to consider his thoughts one last time, but not changing them. "I think I'm gonna need it."

\-----

_"Oh,"_

_he whispered._

_"Yes,"_

_she chimed,_

_"I understand,"_

_they concurred, echoing each other._

_Galena smiled._

_"Now,"_

_she said,_

_"...help us,"_

_they continued,_

_"...to do the same?"_

_Maximillian nodded, and Athena concurred._

_"We will."_

\-----

"Well I'll be god damned. If it ain't Jesse 'Two-Timer' McCree."

Jesse chuckled as he heard about a dozen hammers ratchet into place behind walls, around corners, and behind doors. One familiar silhouette stepped into a doorway, along with another, larger, and equally familiar one, in another. "Hey, there," he said, leaning back a bit into the corner booth on which he sat. "Been wonderin' when you'd show yourselves. Been way too long, ain't it?"

"That's a mighty funny way of sayin' 'ain't been nearly long enough.'"

"Heck, I thought Bob and me at least were still old friends." Jesse flicked a thumb towards a familiar photograph. "I see my picture's still up on the dartboard."

"That's a new one. We wear through 'em about once a month."

"Aw, y'do care."

Elizabeth Caledonia Ashe raised Viper and aimed the repeater right at Jesse McCree's face.

"So tell me, Jesse - why th' hell shouldn't I just take of this business between us for once and for all?"

"How's about this?" he said, flipping a playing-card-sized photograph into the air, watching it land at Ashe's feet.

Ashe glanced down, and then back up. "What th' hell is that?"

"Only the biggest mark you're ever gonna meet."

"That'd have to be pretty damn big."

"She is."

"How big?"

"Remember Bill Fhey?"

Ashe nodded, slowly, her eyes an angry squint.

"Bigger."

Ashe tilted her head up, just a little, and glared even harder at the cowboy.

"You tellin' me you're here... with a job?"

"Sure am. The biggest job ever."

"Liar," she spat.

"And yet here y'are still talkin' t' me, 'stead a'shootin."

Ashe glanced down at the photo again, the woman instantly familiar, the kind of rotten-to-the-core faking-it-all loaded-to-the-gills do-gooder she hated more than just about anybody.

Even more than she hated Jesse 'Two-Timer' McCree.

"Alright then," she said, lowering Viper, flashing the all-clear sign with her left hand.

"Let's talk."

**Author's Note:**

> This is the twenty-seventh instalment of _Of Gods and Monsters: The Arc of Conflict_. To follow the story, [subscribe to the series via this link](https://archiveofourown.org/series/972024), rather than to the individual works.


End file.
